Ableton Forum

Can't downgrade from 1.7 to 1.6 cuz this is a Mid-2010 MBP so came 3.0G/s from new with all firmware.

Not sure about the added screening around the cable as it runs underneath the bare circuit board of the HDD in the 2010. Not sure why it would seem fine, then glitch later too.

Do you use you MBP just for music, or for all sorts? Would you (unscientifically) suggest that it might be changing between Flash NAND and having to spin the drive up during ableton usage?

Odd thing with my low-usage test Live set that's just hours of crossfaded mp3s/mp4s is that all the audio files are on my Hitachi drive, so the XT is only running really basic OS/Ableton stuff. Think it's time to give it a rest and experiment with running off the OS on my Hitachi drive and accessing samples off the XT instead, or just put the WD back in for now. Maybe that'll give me more joy. I'm spending too much time trying to sort this out.

Fail.

Piplodocus wrote: Do you use you MBP just for music, or for all sorts?

I use the MBP for everything, work and personal.

Piplodocus wrote: Would you (unscientifically) suggest that it might be changing between Flash NAND and having to spin the drive up during ableton usage?

It's hard to say. I definitely get LESS audio dropouts since using the XT, but I still get some, it's fairly random. It could be from switching between the NAND and HDD, but I really can't say for sure.

I believe the way it's supposed to operate is that the drive is constantly determining which files are being accessed regularly and keeps re-assigning them to the 4gb of NAND. That is why it takes several reboots before it "learns" what you are accessing, and these files are moved to be accessed by the flash memory.
You can watch this happen by booting, opening a few specific programs, closing them, re-launching, closing, repeat this pattern a few times, reboot once or twice and do it again. By the third or fourth boot, your OS will load way faster, as well the specific apps and/or files you were launching/re-launching. At that point, those specific files and apps will load really fast, like Mail app fully loaded in 1 bounce on the dock, Pages '09 load in 1 bounce, etc.
Basically smaller, lightweight apps that you use regularly will load so fast it will feel like an SSD.

Even still, I'm used to the speed of the XT to the point where when I use any other computer besides mine, they feel noticeably slower. But not THAT much slower. I imagine if one were to only use stuff like a web browser, mail, and maybe a few other lightweight apps, it would probably feel pretty similar to a lower speed SSD as you would likely always have your main files and applications running from the NAND partition.

Piplodocus wrote: Odd thing with my low-usage test Live set that's just hours of crossfaded mp3s/mp4s is that all the audio files are on my Hitachi drive, so the XT is only running really basic OS/Ableton stuff. Think it's time to give it a rest and experiment with running off the OS on my Hitachi drive and accessing samples off the XT instead, or just put the WD back in for now. Maybe that'll give me more joy. I'm spending too much time trying to sort this out.

Fail.

If it's causing that many problems, you may consider just going back to the Hitachi.

If you don't want to try the insulation on the cable to see if that works, just return the drive. It's not THAT much faster than a 7200 rpm, trust me. It's noticeable, but not like a real SSD if you're using Ableton and lots of different applications and large files.

oops, just saw that the AHCI controller on my macbook pro is the Nvidia MCP79 and not the intel one, maybe another important difference ?

The Landwhale wrote: It's hard to say. I definitely get LESS audio dropouts since using the XT, but I still get some, it's fairly random.

What type of dropouts, how long, how hard are you pushing it on the % indicator? Do you get ableton disk lights with them? How long is your buffer size.

I figure I shouldn't get ANY apart from very very rare circumstances. How do pro's perform live every night in front of thousands of people, cuz they don't have noticeable dropouts/glitches (the vast majority of the time) and I've been in enough audiences, going back a good few years where hardware wasn't as fast either?

So here's my dilemma: The XT i'm installing is going to be installed in my 2nd hard drive bay on my laptop. My primary is only 130gb I think and is 90% full. Would I be better off cloning my entire drive to the XT and using the XT as the boot master then using my stock HD for pictures and less important files or should I just use applicatins like ableton and my vst libraries on the XT while leaving all the boot files on the original so that the XT doesn't have to worry about processing any other random apps?

Piplodocus wrote: What type of dropouts, how long, how hard are you pushing it on the % indicator? Do you get ableton disk lights with them? How long is your buffer size.

The dropouts I get are pretty random, usually quick total drop of audio lasting a half second at most.
Ableton's CPU % spikes up of course when this happens, as well as the disk indicator.

The dropouts normally only happen during recording, not so often during playback, but there's a few other things to consider here.

My current MBP is 2.8ghz core 2duo, 4gb ram, 500gb Momentus XT. Everything is running off the XT, I rarely need to use any external drives for recording.

I normally record at either 44.1khz or 48khz 24-bit through either my Apogee Duet or GIO.
The buffer size normally stays at 64 samples regardless of which interface I'm using, and I bump it up to 128 or 256 samples once the session gets heavy on CPU as I'm adding more tracks and/or plugins.

The dropouts mostly occur during recording or when using Looper at 64 samples. I rarely get dropouts if I'm at 128 or 256.
I always use "collect and save" and sync my current Live projects I'm working on in my dropbox.
This means Dropbox is always syncing when I save, record new audio, or consolidate.
It could be the extra push on the drive and CPU when the new audio is syncing through dropbox that causes these occasional glitches, I'm going to pay more attention to see if Dropbox is currently syncing whenever I have a dropout.

Also of note, this happens whether I'm connected to the internet wirelessly or through ethernet, so I don't believe it's airport causing the issue.

Piplodocus wrote: I figure I shouldn't get ANY apart from very very rare circumstances. How do pro's perform live every night in front of thousands of people, cuz they don't have noticeable dropouts/glitches (the vast majority of the time) and I've been in enough audiences, going back a good few years where hardware wasn't as fast either?

Ideally, of course you shouldn't get any dropouts at all. Maybe version 9 will eliminate the dropouts, it sure would be nice.
As far as Pro's go, they get issues too, but they either take the time to find the best configuration for their performances or they have a tech who handles it for them.
I'm sure lots of people are switching to using SSD's for live performance to avoid audio dropout issues, especially ones caused from vibration from big assed subs.

That's a pretty short buffer size, so may well be the reason. (I tried mine with very large buffers previously to no change).

My WD is back in as of my lunch break, so now I'm going to really rag that to see if I can get any of the same errors in case it is the cable/controller.

still not having problems here with 500gb momentus xt in an early 2006 black macbook.

i just saw this article on engadget

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/20/mome ... king-to-f/

so for those who are having problems there is likely a solution in the works. its been recognised as a known issue now so presumably you could get your money back or at least an equal replacement from your reseller?

I can't seem to find any reviews about the toshiba 1 TB internal 3.5" drive. I wonder if any has heard anything. I've got the Western Digital 1TB drive and it's ok but it goes a bit slow sometimes (it is 5,200 rpm though). I think I'd like to get a 5,400 rpm 1TB drive for my next Macbook Pro and I'm looking at this toshiba one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822149182

@glitchrock, why bother? WD and Seagate have 750GB 7200rpm 2.5" HDs out for around $100, Samsung have a 640GB 7200rpm 2.5" HD out for about $65.
I just got the Samsung on sale for about $59 a couple weeks ago. Haven't been able to instal it as I'm right in the middle of recording/comping drum tracks with my band. Excited though, I've had a 200GB HD that I have to clear off every month or so!
My sample library and song set is still under 500GB so this is enough for now!

Machinesworking wrote:@glitchrock, why bother? WD and Seagate have 750GB 7200rpm 2.5" HDs out for around $100, Samsung have a 640GB 7200rpm 2.5" HD out for about $65.
I just got the Samsung on sale for about $59 a couple weeks ago. Haven't been able to instal it as I'm right in the middle of recording/comping drum tracks with my band. Excited though, I've had a 200GB HD that I have to clear off every month or so!
My sample library and song set is still under 500GB so this is enough for now!

Well the thing is, I'm used to having 1TB internal now. I use almost 700 GB of the 1 TB and don't really want to take things off. I do keep some movies on an external but I like having my music collection and full sample library on my lappy. I'm leaving my current 1 TB drive in my macbook pro that I'm selling so I'll pick up another 1 TB drive for 100 bucks for a new one (Been looking forward to a quadcore for a while). It's just too hard to go back and I'd prefer having the extra space left on the drive.

There's also a samsung 5400rpm 1 TB drive. Read an review that the samsung is a little more noisy than WD (which is what I have) so maybe the toshiba is a good one to try. Not sure.

Just thought I'd add an update on this...

Obviously it appears that not everyone has this problem with the drive judging from here and the seagate forums (rememeber this is the XT hybrid, not the regular momentus too). But another Live user had exactly the same as me here I discovered, while searching the forum to update this thread: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=155182

Anyway, after the latest firmware it seemed to be running fine on the latest snow leopard (10.6.8?) and then on Lion, all trouble and glitch free, and I'd been quite happy (finally). Last night it died completely and I can't access it at all, almost exactly a year to the day I first installed it. It's also been sat in an external enclosure collecting dust for most of this last year, until the latest firmware made it work as well.

So the good news is it seems to work from my experience with the latest firmware if you experience problems. The bad news is I still don't trust them at all. The thread on the Seagate forum saying that it appears to corrupt large files in Linux (and probably mac OS) doesn't give me much more confidence either. I guess I have to keep beta testing for them though as I'm only just over 1 year into my 5 year warranty, and I don't have money to change to a 250GB SSD + a larger 750GB or 1TB 2nd drive in my laptop...

Remember... BACK UP all the time. This weeks new song parts have all gone down the drain. The amount of times I've done a full retore of my drives swapping this bloody thing in and out I'm thinking maybe I should have a backup backup!

Hi guys. I have the momentus XT. I was having problems, and upgraded to the later firmware. This helped but did not resolve the issue.

What wound up working for me (and now this thing rocks, and has been for 8 or 9 months) was disabling the onboard Sudden Motion Sensor. It turns out that having two drop sensors involved just doesn't work...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934

has instructions on how to disable Apple's Sudden Motion Sensor.

S

Finally!

I started loving my Momentus XT!

Ableton Live GUI doesn't freeze any more!! no lag spikes or audio drops!!

I just downgraded from latest firmware version: SD28 to SD26 it solved my problem!!!

Awesome!!!

It's possible to downgrade to any firmware version:

1. Download the SD26 firmware from here: Click here to start download from sendspace
2. Burn a .iso image onto blank CD (or make bootable flash drive) and boot from it
3. Interrupt the wizard boot before the menu appears by pressing CTRL+C to get DOS console
4. Enter the command: cd D:\ where ''D'' is your CD drive letter it can be different in your case
5. then type: DIR and hit enter it will show you what's present on this bootable CD
4. Enter: FDL487A -m Anak -f ”firmware_file_name_on_cd.lod” -i “your_disk_model” -s -x -b -v -a 20

** no need to type '' ''
*** FDL487A - it can be different name of file for SD26 but something similar you will notice

WAIT TILL IT'S FINISH FIRMWARE UPGRADE!

5. Restart your machine.

Done

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SD26 you can download here:

Bootable iso version:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/rifiz5

Windows version (This will not work if you have latest firmware this only work for SD25 and below)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mhlkbf